Rube Roundup

A great time was had at the book release party for The Art of Rube Goldberg last week. The Lori Bookstein Fine Art gallery was packed with folks eager to step into the world of Rube Goldberg. Original black and white artwork and comics filled the walls (after being stored under the bed of Rube’s granddaughter, Jennifer George). A video loop of various Rube Goldberg contraptions played overhead as people lined up to get their books signed. We were joined by fellow paper engineers, Sam Ita, Simon Arizpe and Becca Zerkin as well as the wonderful Pop-up Lady, Ellen Rubin. It was great to see everyone out to support Andy Baron, who created the intricate movable cover for the coffee table book. While I did not get a chance to meet the writer/contributor, Adam Gopnik, (who slipped out early) it was a real treat to see Al Jaffee, creator of the MAD magazine fold-ins. I love these paper folded wonders and hope that I am going as strong at 92! Before we ducked out for dinner, I tried my hand at the RubeWorks app on the iPad and was very impressed with the interactive play and realistic physics. One of the app designers demonstrating the title told me that he also builds the physical contraptions which gave him a good perspective on the gameplay. He then mentioned that the event planners wanted him to construct a working model for the launch party, but he said it would have taken him weeks to complete. I smiled as I remembered that this book took no less than seven years to complete (with some versions of the book project going back decades), but boy oh boy, it was worth the wait.

~Kyle

This entry was posted
on Wednesday, November 27th, 2013 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.